


Winter to Spring

by strawberriesandtophats



Category: The Musketeers (2014)
Genre: Character Study, Hurt/Comfort, Kissing, M/M, Return of the Sin Carriage, Spanish Prison AU, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-25
Updated: 2017-12-25
Packaged: 2019-02-20 10:31:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,681
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13144782
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/strawberriesandtophats/pseuds/strawberriesandtophats
Summary: “Please Treville,” Richelieu said, hearing his own voice shaking against his own will. How many times has he imagined this conversation? How many times has he decided against having it? How many times had he rehearsed it in front of his cats? “Lie to me.”Treville blinked, a frown on his face.“Tell me that this is real,” Richelieu said, regaining some measure of control. They are alone. There is no one else to hear. “Not some hallucination, or a dream.”It was quite a sight to see, the horror in Captain Treville’s eyes. He was a brave man. A kind one, far kinder than Richelieu would ever consider himself to be.“What?” Treville breathed, gripping the edge of the seat as if he wants to anchor the whole world, so that it would all go still for just a moment.Richelieu waited.





	Winter to Spring

**Author's Note:**

  * For [FreyaLor](https://archiveofourown.org/users/FreyaLor/gifts).



Men like Richelieu didn’t get rescued from prison, saved like a damsel in distress.

Men like Richelieu didn’t get fairy tales.

But he had.

 

Treville had saved him.

Hadn’t he just.

 

When the sparrows and skylarks had started hopping from branch to branch in the tree outside his cell, Richelieu had opened his eyes.

He’d learned to distinguish the birds’ behaviour by sound by now. He knew every chirp, every flutter of wings as much as he knew the way the wind howled and the footsteps of the guards.

 

These were sounds of an approaching threat or disturbance.

Might be a cat, or a carriage.

 

When the guards started shouting, Richelieu had closed his eyes again and resumed his prayers. He’d had this dream before, and there was no sense in standing up when he was going to wake soon to the same sight of moulding hay and sturdy walls.

 

And then he heard Treville’s footsteps in the hallway.

Richelieu had kept his eyes closed.

He’d had this dream a thousand times.

A million times.

Treville was under no obligation to save him. He didn’t even know Richelieu was still alive.

 

The shouts became louder, echoing off the walls. There was the sound of metal and bodies hitting the stone floor.

Hope could be a certain kind of torture.

Richelieu kept his eyes closed and resolutely did not think of blue fabric in the faint breeze.

 

The cell door had opened. But Armand had not moved. His body no longer allowed much more than a trip to the bucket where he relieved himself and back to the wall where he sat. The pain saw to that. Didn’t it just.

 

Richelieu had ignored the pounding of his own heart, right until a hand was placed on his shoulder, feather light. His body had been an open wound for a long time now, worse than it had ever been in Paris, even during his worst nights.

 

The hand had been warm and calloused.

 

“Armand,” a hoarse voice had said, ever so gently as if Armand was a wounded animal that could bolt at any second.

Treville had never sounded like that in his dreams.

 

“Yes?” Richelieu had tried to say, but his voice refused to obey him.

 

He had opened his eyes to the sight of Treville kneeling in front of him. What a sight that was, and in another time, Richelieu would have appreciated it more than when his mind was a swirl of prayers to God, helplessly thanking him for creating someone like Treville.

 

“I’m going to bring you back to Paris,” Treville had said, his voice far too soft and his eyes too shiny. There was blood dripping from a sword in his hand, onto the filthy floor.

 

Richelieu nodded, covering the hand on his shoulder with his own hand.

The hand had felt solid underneath his own scarred mess of a hand.

 

Treville had scooped him off the floor and carried him outside into the fresh, clean air. And brought him back home to Paris, as if it was nothing at all.

 

Armand had closed his eyes, soaking in whatever sensations he could handle, from the scent of leather to the sound of Treville’s men patting their horses to encourage them.

 

The king had cried helplessly when they’d brought him to see Richelieu, draped in his old red robes. Louis had cried like a child who’d lost his parents and found them again.

 

Richelieu had bowed and managed to dredge up appropriate words from a place in his mind he’d thought he’d have no use for any longer.

Time had passed, healing his wounds and quieting the incessant fear of waking up again in the cell.

 

Treville left half-crushed wildflowers on his desk, as he’d done before.

They’d become a well-oiled and terrifyingly efficient machine so that everything could continue to run smoothly on the surface. France needed someone who ensured that the Musketeers were well-trained, observant and daring so that the king would be physically safe. And it needed someone who could write endless letters and influence thousands of men, who could steer the entire country towards a brighter future.

And France needed them to work together as one.

So they did.

The fact that Captain Treville had found the previously presumed dead Cardinal and brought him back to resume work in Paris was what truly frightened people.

You didn’t get in the way of a person like that.

Richelieu’s body had healed as the months passed, regaining his former strength slowly but surely. Every time Richelieu felt himself beyond his limits at court, Treville would be standing within arm’s reach, watching his every movement, listening to every word.

He never touched Richelieu without permission, and then only to allow Richelieu to support himself by grabbing his shoulder in a secluded hallway where they would not be interrupted. He doesn’t mention the scars on Richelieu’s jaw or how much Richelieu’s hands shake in the evenings even when Armand tries to hide it. He’s got plenty of scars of his own.

Richelieu pushed away the dreams of Treville bowing and kissing his ring, shaking his head at his cats when they looked at his expectantly.

Treville waited and he waited and he waited, until Richelieu would make the first move.

They were both good at waiting by now.

 

 

So, it was no great surprise when Treville didn’t complain when he closed the door to the carriage, his hat slightly askew.

“I want you to assist me, Captain,” Richelieu began, as Treville took off his hat and glanced at him. “It is a rather delicate matter.”

“Hm?” Treville said, looking up. His lips were thin, his expression guarded. Thinking of assassins and knife wounds and duels, most likely. And escape routes. Treville, Richelieu had learned, spent his life looking for escape routes and strategies and how to use every single thing in his immediate surroundings as a weapon. Sometimes that weapon was Richelieu, of course.

The carriage sped through the streets, towards the Louvre. Richelieu knew this route by heart, there was no need to look out the window.

Looking out the window would distract him, which could lead to him postponing this discussion until it had only become a memory.

There was not much time. There never had been and would never be.

The dream has never lasted this long before.

“Please Treville,” Richelieu said, hearing his own voice shaking against his own will. How many times has he imagined this conversation? How many times has he decided against having it? How many times had he rehearsed it in front of his cats? “Lie to me.”

Treville blinked, a frown on his face.

“Tell me that this is real,” Richelieu said, regaining some measure of control. They are alone. There is no one else to hear. “Not some hallucination, or a dream.”

It was quite a sight to see, the horror in Captain Treville’s eyes. He was a brave man. A kind one, far kinder than Richelieu would ever consider himself to be.

“What?” Treville breathed, gripping the edge of the seat as if he wants to anchor the whole world, so that it would all go still for just a moment.

Richelieu waited.

“We are in Paris,” Treville said slowly, taking Richelieu’s hands in his as if he was afraid that Richelieu was going to break apart in front of him like a glass that had fallen off a table. “This is not a dream or a hallucination.”

“How can you be sure?” Richelieu asked.

Treville looked at this with the assurance of a man who had once been a little boy swinging a sword in the country and now spent his days by the king’s side. His hair was almost entirely grey now, as was his beard.

He’d return to his estate one day.

But not today.

Not today.

“Because I searched for you until I found you,” Treville stated. “And then I brought you back home.”

His fingers brushed the scar on Richelieu’s jaw, moving closer until their knees bumped as the carriage turned to the left. His lips were chapped and warm.

Treville was gunpowder and leather and the faintest trace of bread.

“I’m not going to fade away like a ghost,” Treville said, one hand resting on Richelieu’s knee and edging slowly upwards, moving red fabric away with the ease of one who has done it a thousand times before.

Richelieu nodded, gripping the blue fabric of Treville’s cloak with one hand as Treville moved even closer. Treville’s hands were slow, caressing rather than yanking him closer. Richelieu buried one hand in Treville’s soft hair, feeling each scar on his head.

They kissed as if they had all the time in the world.

They didn’t pull apart for a long time.

But when they did, Treville was smiling, his eyes closed.

Richelieu let himself breathe, his heart hammering against his ribs.

The fabric of Treville’s cloak was soft in his hands and it was almost as if it carried the scent of the wind itself, free and wild and terrifying by turns. But it was solid in his hands.

Treville didn’t fade away when Richelieu let go of him. He didn’t fade at all.

“Good,” Treville breathed, pulling away as the carriage slowed down.

Richelieu adjusted his robes and Treville made a valiant attempt to get his hair to obey him, but ended up just putting his hat on his head to hide the mess that was his hair.

When they stepped out into the sunshine, no one batted an eye at the sight of Richelieu’s hurried walk or the flush on Treville’s neck. Everyone knew they still argued. Prison wasn’t going to change that.

The king just smiled at them when they arrived. The diplomats and courtiers did not.

And the expression on Treville’s face had changed from polite interest to a feral smile when Richelieu touched his cross and the diplomats backed away instinctively.

Richelieu offered them a tiny, sharp smile.

And everything slid into place, as effortlessly as the sun rises.


End file.
